


Oopsie Daisies

by Doceo_Percepto



Series: A Noncanon Version of Little Nightmares II [7]
Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, TAM AU - Freeform, Vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doceo_Percepto/pseuds/Doceo_Percepto
Summary: Mono gets injured. He and Six have to cope.
Series: A Noncanon Version of Little Nightmares II [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652644
Comments: 10
Kudos: 102





	Oopsie Daisies

**Author's Note:**

> [Blood_Is_Ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blood_Is_Ink) came up with this idea of Mono getting hurt and Six caring for him and I'm sorry because I think you intended something much nicer than this, but boy, you know how I am....

Mono jerked awake to the foul odor of a ruptured gastrointestinal tract. For any unfamiliar, this was an indescribably nauseating assault of a smell. It was one that you really never needed or wanted to experience. With the stench so heavy as it was now, he and Six would not stop smelling it on themselves for days. His first thought was, _why haven’t we moved away from something like that?_

The second thought was that his head hurt. Not just a _little_ , either. The pain was concentrated on the side of his skull, but its lingering tendrils wrapped around and burrowed beneath his eye socket. 

Groaning, Mono raised numb fingers and touched the swollen flesh by his temple. _Ow._ Mistake. That was a painful mistake. 

What the hell had happened?

They’d come across a monster… he remembered that much. An adult with spidery limbs. But he remembered nothing else.

His eyes cracked open, vision blurry. Vaguely he discerned a yellow hood haloed by the burnt amber sky. He had to blink several times before his vision cleared enough to pick out any details. “Six?” The name came out raspier than intended, but it snared her attention fast. “What happened-?”

Groggily, he tried to push himself into a sitting position, only for Six to halt the attempt with a small hand on his chest. Her lips were set in a pale, solemn line. 

“I’m sorry, I meant to help more, I - did I get hit-?” 

Before Six even had a chance to answer, his eyes were drawn to a hulking shape laying lifeless behind her. Enormous yellow eyes, sagging flesh, and a mouth parted in a noiseless, limp scream. It was dead. Gutted almost to a point that it couldn’t be recognized, but the pieces clicked. This was the adult they'd been facing, now dead, and that was where the rancid smell was coming from. God that was creepy, though. Six must have beat it after all. Without his help after a certain point, apparently. Normally they just killed the adults, Six fed a bit, and then they moved on. This one was downright _mutilated_. Innards spilling out, gouges in its arms, throat, and face. 

Mono didn’t know if it was that sight or his pain - most likely a mix of both - that had him twisting to the side and burping up some of his lunch. _Yuck_. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. This was awful. And now his mouth tasted horrible, too. “Six, what - what exactly happened?” He dizzily refocused on her pale face, “Am I-“ he tried to sit up again; and again, Six forced him down, this time baring her teeth. A clear indication as any: _Don’t move_.

“I’m fine, we need to go-“

On his third attempt to get up, he glanced down and saw his body… or rather, saw the state it was in. 

“ _Ooh_ -“ Another wave of dizziness swamped him. The harsh tang of vomit tickled at the back of his throat, but there was nothing left except bile. “ _Oh, okay_.” The words were faint and tinny in his ears, and he was half aware of how stupid they sounded but he was too busy processing what he saw to care.

Blood was soaked through the bottom of his shirt. Vicious wounds had opened the meat of his stomach, and his pants were cut away at the thigh to reveal a mangled leg.

Mono closed his eyes tight, but the afterimage was imprinted under his eyelids. Bone splintered out of skin, brownish red staining everywhere. It hadn’t looked like his own body, but rather that of a puppet, or something separate, something fake. This couldn't be real. As if the mere sight of it made it true, he could feel the pain now, hot and sharp and crawling all the way up his torso, so searing that he couldn't fathom how he hadn’t felt it before. The limb was barely recognizable as a leg anymore, certainly not as _his_ leg and he fervently wished that it didn't like that, that this had never happened.

He seethed through his teeth. Okay. No moving. Right. _Now_ that made sense. 

When he next dared to look, he saw that Six had a bucket of bloody water beside her, and a torn cloth in her hands. She had been in the middle of wiping away blood and cleaning debris from the wound.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck_

Suddenly a lot of things made sense. Why Six had hurt the monster so badly instead of just killing it. Why they hadn’t left. Why he felt so awful. 

The monster had maimed him. Bad enough he’d lost consciousness. And then Six had maimed _it_. And now? Now he was in bad shape.

His breathing rattled in his ears. His fingers clenched in the dirt. 

_Shit_.

“How bad is it?” He asked Six faintly, half-pleading. She’d tended to a dozen of his injuries in the past; he trusted her to know. He _needed_ her to know. More than anything, he wanted a reassurance that it was fine, that there’d be no long-term problems. Give it a few weeks, he’d be right as rain! Just a thumbs up, a smile, a chastising look of _you dummy, it’s not bad at all._ Any of those would be great. Six offered nothing but a hard set to her jaw and a jerk of one shoulder. She didn’t know. It wasn't good, though.

_Don’t panic._

Panicking was a surefire way to make things worse. He took even, steady breaths to calm himself. Evidently Six interpreted that as him being ready enough for her to continue her previous task. 

She dipped the rag in the bucket and wrung out the water, before applying it straight to the raw wound. 

In another circumstance, Mono probably would have been ashamed of the noise that ripped from his throat. He jerked hard enough to send fresh agony searing head to toe, and the affair ended with a pathetic sob. 

Six snarled, putting a finger to her lips and making the gesture look more like a threat than surely anyone else could achieve.

“ _It hurts_!” Mono hissed. Jeez, it’s not like this was some paper cut!

Six gestured frenetically to the side. With dread, he followed her gesture. Distantly, in the sun-scorched horizon, there were large shapes moving in a slow, marching gait. Not towards Mono and Six, thankfully, but it would take very little to change that course of action. They were lucky those monsters weren’t already on their way here, with one of their kind not so subtly laying in the dirt. 

Mono swallowed hard. If they were found with him in this condition, he wouldn't survive the encounter. And he didn’t expect Six to stick around to die, either. _Great_. Six needed to tend to the wound if he wanted to survive, but he couldn't risk making noise that would attract more monsters. Just fantastic. 

“Give me a cloth to bite on,” he volunteered, defeated. This was gonna be... unpleasant. The elected cloth happened to be a piece of his ripped pants. It tasted horribly of dirt and blood, but it was all that was available. Once Six set to work again, it proved to be _very_ useful. 

Fortunately, he wasn’t conscious for much longer after that.

* * *

Mono groggily woke sometime later. His whole body felt terrible, like he’d been kicked to hell and back, but the worst was the constant throbbing in his leg. He sat up, rubbing his head. The sky above was a grayish blue, the sun gone, and the moon a sliver. In the half-light, he could make out the sloppy wrappings, taken from clothes, that Six had wound around his leg. It was a dirty, bloody sight. The dead monster was just a lump of shadow, but its reek pervaded the air worse than before, as did the vomit Mono had earlier expelled. Everything hurt. His throat and mouth were dry, his tongue felt like a ball of cotton. 

In summary? This sucked. Bad. 

He attention shifted over to Six; she was sitting cross legged not far, surveying him.She looked tired and filthy, too. Covered in blood; some Mono’s, some the monster’s. There was a crease to her brow, and a downward tilt to her lips.

It wasn’t often he saw her looking so somber. Couldn't say that it was comforting. 

“Water?” Mono croaked, sitting up.

She scooted closer and procured their canteen. Gratefully, he unscrewed the lid and poured the last bits of the liquid down his throat. It did little to abate his thirst. They’d need to find more water soon.

“I feel disgusting,” Mono uttered. 

She snorted, the expression on her face saying that he _looked_ disgusting. 

“Hey!”

She smoothed into a softer look. She crept closer, like she was afraid she was going to hurt him if she even stepped wrong. 

“I’m not fragile,” Mono chided her. “You don’t have to treat me like a baby.” She shoved his shoulder; he winced but bit back on a further reaction. Even moving the top half of his body hurt.

Playfulness diminished, Six sat beside him, and brushed her shoulder gently against his. Her eyes were worried, inquiring.

He chewed his lip, wanting to ask details about the fight. A clear step-by-step of what had happened. He wanted to understand exactly how things had gone so wrong. Mute, Six wouldn't be able to give him that. Anyway, why would it help? The monster had got him. The end result was the same, no matter how it happened. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. It was his fault. Six had been handling things well, and then he - he messed up. He got hurt. “I didn’t mean-”

She smushed two fingers to his lips. No more. 

He exhaled. Took her hand in his and pulled it away from his lips. “Thanks for taking care of me,” he said.

She leaned over to ruffle his hair.

“Hey, no messing with the hairdo!”

Rolling her eyes, she put her hand on her head and stuck up her fingers all afray. 

“Are you saying my hair is a mess?”

Her imitation was completed with her eyes going cross eyed and a stupid expression on her face. 

“Rude. I worked all morning to make it perfect, and I don’t look _that_ stupid.” 

She snorted; he couldn't help huffing a laugh, too. Frankly, he was a complete wreck right now. Worse than Six. Even the small laugh sent fresh pain tearing through his stomach, and he winced. Very quickly her expression went from carefree to concerned. 

“It’s fine,” he muttered. She let out a soft mewl. Not believing him, of course. “All right, it really hurts. I’m pissed that I let this happen.” 

She reached for his mouth again, but he stopped her halfway. “You can’t just cover my mouth every time I say something you don’t like,” he teased.

She stuck out her tongue. 

“Very mature.” His eyes dropped to their held hands, worry biting at him again. “We need supplies, Six. More than just water and old clothes.” Normally they could forage for disinfectant, clean bandages, and so on as needed. But they had traveled far from the city in the past few weeks. The most they had passed were old defunct villages, places raided by a dozen small hands before theirs. Medical supplies outside of the city were in high demand, and not easily found. And he couldn't move very far at all in this condition… 

Six might have tended to the wounds, but the leg itself was still bent wrong, and the pain was a constant, relentless throbbing. Would it ever even be the same after this? 

“I hate this,” he spat out bitterly. “By this time, we were supposed to already be somewhere else. We were supposed to be having fun, and not worrying about anything, and-” he gritted his teeth. “What if it doesn’t get better? What if I can’t fight with you? We have to get more help, Six; I don’t think it’s going to heal right…”

He caught a glimpse of the dismay deepening on her face, and he mentally shook himself. He was the leader of their duo. He needed to keep it together. _What if_ ’s weren’t helping anything. 

He exhaled shakily. “It’s all right. We’ll head back to the city tomorrow. We’ll look for something useful along the way…”

She nodded quietly, very much like she didn't believe him.

When the moon was overhead, she curled up beside him, brushing her cheek lightly against his: a silent promise to not leave him. He eventually drifted into a restless, pain-riddled sleep, but she remained awake, eyes scouring the shadows around them, ever-watchful for danger.

* * *

The following morning found them starting towards the City. Mono was grateful to leave the reeking corpse behind them. The only trouble was that he couldn't actually _walk_. He had to lean heavily on Six, and limp along. Six was huffing and frowning a mere five minutes into the trip. Breaks were long and frequent, as walking in this fashion was agony for him, and exhausting for them both. Worse? They had only a scrap of food for him to eat, and no water.

“This isn’t going to work,” Mono had to admit, wincing in pain when Six helped lower him to the ground. “You’re going to have go looking for supplies, Six. We’re not gonna make it anywhere like this.”

She didn’t argue, her eyes saying that she already knew everything he was proposing. Maybe even that she had thought of it before him. Only she hadn’t mentioned it. Was she waiting for him to come to the realization? That idea made him uncomfortable in a way he preferred not to think about. 

Either way, she helped him into the shadow of a gutted building. Once he was settled, she vanished, light footed and quick as always. Mono tilted his head back against the crumbling brick, and closed his eyes. Now there just to wait… and thirst… and wait… and thirst. Nothing to take his mind off the throbbing in his leg and stomach, which had worsened after his meager attempts to walk. _Come back soon, Six._

It wasn’t until nearly evening, with his throat parched, that she returned. The filled canteen she pushed into his hands, and he gulped gratefully. She had a few cans of food, too. But no disinfectant, no clean bandages. He didn’t even need to ask if she had found any - if she had, they’d be here now. 

The next day passed very similarly; the two of them limping along together for some distance, Six leaving once he could go no further, and then returning with water. Still no medical supplies. This time, Mono couldn't help asking,

“Did you go in a different direction? Did you see if maybe there was something else, if you just looked elsewhere?”

Six’s gaze was steely, and she peeled back her lips to bare her teeth. Yes, she’d done those things. No, she had found nothing. It was a dumb question, and he’d known it, but her frustration with him only frustrated _him_ further. He hated being this helpless. Hated being able to move only in increments, and only with great pain. Hated being left alone for hours on end. The whole situation had him furious, but being furious didn’t help one bit. 

The small mercies were the evenings and nights, when the air was cool, and Six curled up close to him. Before his injury, she only rarely slept huddled up close to him. Now she was sleeping that way every night, as if afraid to let him out of her sight. It occurred to him on the second night that she must despise leaving him, knowing that he was currently in no position to defend himself. She must hate exploring for supplies, knowing he was waiting and unable to take care of himself. Only for her to return and be asked accusingly if she was trying hard enough…

“Thank you,” Mono whispered to her that night, and trailed his fingers down her back. She turned her gaze to him, and a small smile appeared at her lips. The look she gave him was one of the gentlest he had ever seen. “This will all be better when I heal,” he promise. It was an attempt at reassurance, for himself as much as her. But soon as he said it, he regretted it. Her eyes went stony again. Her smile went stiff. She nodded, like she wanted to agree, but couldn't.

That was the first time the thought really settled into his gut: he might _not_ heal. Two days had now passed since the injury, and while Six had opened up the knotted cloth to let the wound breathe, and done her best to rinse it periodically… realistically, she was rinsing with what little water they could provide, which wasn’t too clean. There were no fresh bandages to replace the old ones, and the old ones were just dirty clothes. No amount of diligent tending mattered if you simply didn’t have the right equipment. 

That night, he slept fitfully, haunted by images of his leg rotting away, and disease pumping through his blood.

* * *

“You have to go further. I have the canteen, and food. I’m set for now.” That’s what Mono told her the next morning. “You have to find medical supplies. No matter how far you need to go.” There became a point where it didn’t matter. Where she went too far that returning was pointless. But she knew that well, and Mono didn’t have to reiterate that point. 

This time, Six _did_ hesitate. “Please,” Mono said. She knew the truth, too, that they couldn't keep going at their turtle pace, with Six fetching nothing but food and water. So in the end, she agreed.

She leaned in, and pressed her cheek to his. Then, she was gone. Off to search. Mono never held much stock in the God his mother had prayed to in his youth, but that evening, he closed his eyes and he prayed. That Six would find something. That she would return. That everything would be okay. The moon rose, and reached its height. He dozed intermittently and poorly, not feeling at all well-rested when dawn broke, and there was still no sign of Six. That meant good news, he hoped. That she was continuing on until she found something useful, and then she’d be back. But the sun crept up. Higher, higher, to its zenith. It burned hot in the sky, and still no sign of her. The sun fell. Night’s chill pressed in. 

He shivered, restless, waiting, waiting… His leg ached bad enough that he could almost feel it in his teeth. 

* * *

Sometimes kids formed gangs. Small groups that would raid and loot and look after each other. You'd think they’d be more concerned about surviving adults, and that they’d welcome all kids, but they were selective about who got to join their ranks. They’d rob from other kids as readily as they would adults. 

It was just Mono’s luck that a group of them had to find him. He was baking in the mid-afternoon sun, commiserating about his condition, when a group of them showed up. Just four - usually the groups had to be small, because otherwise they were more of a risk than anything. Still, that was four more than Mono could handle, especially when he was so severely injured.

Right away they noticed his pitiful state, and their eyes glinted with animosity. They rifled through his stuff while he weakly protested. They stole the canteen with his remaining water, and kicked his sides, spat on him, and taunted him. A situation he could have handled easily before very rapidly spun out of his control, and he was left feeling sick, his injuries burning afresh.

Mono was grateful when they got bored of the task and sauntered off. Their actions filled him with helpless rage, but he understood where they were coming from. They had to feel antagonism because if they didn’t, they might feel pity or sympathy and Mono knew as well as anyone that you couldn’t let every single sad case get to you because there was too many, too much death, too much sadness. He had his way of coping with that. These kids? Their way was to separate themselves from the world and people around them. “Us or them.”

After they left, he sat up weakly and did his best to clean himself up while lacking mobility. He tidied the area, too, in an effort to make it look less scuffed. He didn’t want Six to worry.

Even so, when Six at last trudged back by twilight, she knew there had been a fight.

“Don’t go after them,” Mono pleaded. “It’s not worth it, Six - _don’t_ -”

But her eyes flashed with rage and she stormed off. 

“Don’t you dare kill them!” Mono yelled after her. 

Then, annoyingly, there was once again nothing to do but wait.

She returned again only an hour or so later. The set to her shoulders was more relaxed, her eyes calmer and satisfied.

“ _You didn’t_ -” Mono started accusingly; she hissed at him and jerked her head side to side. There was no blood on her, no evidence that she’d done any more than frighten them, and Mono relaxed. She’d shown mercy, and chosen not to kill or severely hurt them as he’d asked. He knew how big of a deal that was. She’d been furious they’d hurt him, and yet she still respected her pact with Mono, still kept the promise to not kill anyone without his explicit permission.

His head thudded against the wall behind him gratefully. “Thank you,” he breathed.  She waved her hand dismissively, but he didn’t miss the tiny upwards quirk of her lips. 

She knelt by his side, and from her coat pockets procured everything the thieves had stolen, as well as some extra food and a few additional canteens.

“They’re not gonna starve or die of thirst now, are they?” Mono said slowly, and Six rolled her eyes. There he was again, going off worrying about people that had hurt him - at least that’s what he imagined she was thinking, and he gave her an apologetic look. 

The other kids would be fine, no doubt. They didn’t form those groups and go attacking people if they didn’t have some sense of how to make it out here. The robbery of their supplies might set them back, but wouldn't kill them. Mono couldn't say the same of himself if Six hadn’t gotten their stuff back. 

He gratefully sipped from one of the canteens while Six settled beside him.

“Couldn't find any antibiotics or anything, huh?” Mono said lowly. It was a subject they hadn’t yet broached since her return, but it lingered in the air like a heavy weight. He’d known, of course, the second he’d seen her returning. He’d known by her tired posture, by the weary look in her eye, and the fact she was empty-handed. Known, too, by the fact she’d left to attack the other kids before tending to Mono.  Except he still had to ask. As if she might suddenly spring a grin and pull out the things that could save him. A ‘haha, gotcha! We've saved!’ 

That didn’t happen, of course. 

Instead, she shook her head mutely. Defeat. Her expression crumpled, and she hunched up, burying her hands in her face. 

Oh, oh shit. 

“Shh- no, no, Six, it’s okay - it’s not your fault-” He looped an arm around her and she pliantly collapsed against him. She clung tightly to him with shaky hands that evinced just how deeply distressed she was. Her eyes stared out into the approaching darkness on the horizon, hollow and sightless. She clung tight like she was afraid he’d be gone the moment she let go.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he repeated like some mantra, even though an awful feeling was sitting low in his belly, weighing down his heart. It _had_ to be okay. “We’ll go a little further tomorrow. This food and water will last us a long time now. We’ll try another direction. We’ll-”

Her fingers covered his mouth. He had the decency to shut up, even though the silence was painful. Silence left him with his thoughts. Silence left him with reality. Silence seemed final.

Six let out a soft, shaky noise. The faint sob twisted painfully inside him. He hated seeing her hurt. 

“Six,” he whispered brokenly, combing his fingers through her ratty hair. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll make it through this, just like we have everything else.”

She stilled for a moment, cherishing the feeling of his fingers through her hair. It was a gesture she always adored. She tended to melt under his hands whenever he set to petting her head or back. Sometimes she even got pushy about it, grabbing his hand and placing it on her in an unspoken demand. The familiarity of this gesture was soothing. For only a moment, if he let the pain become background noise, he could pretend that everything was normal. Everything was okay. 

Then Six ducked out from under his touch.

“Hey, where-?” 

She crouched near his leg. He had removed the bandages for airing only once since she had initially left, as after that time, he didn’t want to see the wound again. At this point, it seared in agony even when he wasn’t moving it, and... well, some things he didn't want to face. But Six had other plans.

Slowly her fingers unwound the crusty pieces of clothing, revealing a swollen angry oozing mess. The wound was hideously inflamed and puckered; Mono gagged, averting his gaze. The sight showed him what he already knew deep down: the wound was infected. And only getting worse. He hated seeing it. He hated that this mangled _thing_ was a part of his body.

“You’re gonna have to go looking again,” he started weakly. “Without me. Just - pick another direction, maybe there’ll be something -” He was beginning to feel feverish and wondered faintly if he was repeating himself. 

Six said and indicated nothing. She looked away from the exposed wound in favor of staring at the ground. She seemed to be turning things over in her mind, contemplating something he couldn’t guess at. Or _could_ guess at. But didn’t want to.

She raised her head. Her eyes were wet. 

“It’s okay,” he uttered, voice cracking. Her fingers touched her cheek. “We’ll find something.”

Except Six had already scoured around. There was no hospital anywhere near here. No supplies they could loot. Even if they could…

_It’d be too late_ , he admitted to himself, slow as molasses. 

Six wasn’t the sort to get lost in negative emotions. She was pragmatic, seeing all the routes she could go and analyzing the best of them to choose. For her to be paralyzed like this, crying softly, that meant she had gleaned that there simply wasn’t another option. 

He heaved against the idea. Resented it. Reality had been bleeding in all this time, though, and he knew what Six knew, he just didn’t want to face it. They were stranded here, and his injury had had days to fester. 

Still, he felt dumb, bewildered. He and Six had been through _so much._ How could this be where things ended? It happened too fast. Suddenly, all of his life had seemed to go by too fast. He was only a kid still, this couldn't be the end. His breathing picked up with his panic, and it felt like sound was coming in his ears funny. Like someone had shoved cotton into his sore head. 

_No_ , he thought. That was the only thing he could think, over and over. He'd always had his whole life ahead of him. Always had tomorrow, and the next, and the next. The mere concept of that ending - of things continuing on after - about _Six_ -

"I wasn't done here, though," Mono whispered.

Six shifted nearer. Her fingers alighted onto his cheeks and for one bizarre and startling moment he thought she was going to kiss him. Instead, her forehead touched to his.

“Six?” He whispered, confused, dismayed.

Her breath mingled with his and for a moment there was nothing but silence, while her thumbs tenderly rubbed over his cheeks. Had it been any other situation, he may have found the gesture odd. He was too scared now to consider it weird.

“What are you thinking?” He tried.

When she leaned away (though still quite close), her eyes had a darker look in them. A rigid, sinister sort of aura. Earlier, he had deduced that she’d been mulling over something. Now it seemed she had decided. Her tongue curled over her teeth. Her appraisal shifted down to his throat. It was impossible for him to not interpret the signs correctly, because he’d seen them so many times before. 

So belatedly, he understood. He wasn’t going to live one way or another. Not with infection seeping into his blood and infiltrating his body. So there was two ways this could go down. He could cling onto life avidly for as long as he was able to fight the inevitable, as each day grew only more agonizing. Or…

Or Six. She'd always wanted to eat him. She hadn't made any secret out of that. And it was only the bond of their friendship that had withheld her in the past. But with his life ending, anyway... She didn't have that stopping her anymore.

“ _No_ ,” he uttered weakly, eyes rounding. That was the primal animal part of his brain speaking, balking at his death no matter the circumstance. Being eaten alive was _exactly_ what prey animals feared. The more logical part of his brain chimed that Six, at least, was faster. That part of him wasn’t strong enough to speak up. "No, no, Six-"

It was almost funny how little those protests did to stop her.


End file.
